Eh. Decent point, all things considered. Have to be a wee bit disappointed at the way the second half played out, though. Jose out-thought AVB to an extent: by putting Ramires in the lumbering Mikel's spot, he instantly dispelled most of the superior levels of energy and movement we were mustering, due to Ramires' seemingly limitless stamina, speed and agility carrying him around and into our central duo with ease. And by putting Mata on and putting Hazard central, he forced Dembele and Paulinho to come a bit deeper to counter the overload Chelsea had in front of our back-four (with Lampard, Mata, Oscar and Hazard all drifting into central pockets), which then again played into his hands because Ramires was freed up even more and began bursting through the central midfield with ease.
Because of this, our centre-backs had to watch more players than just Torres, which forced them to stand off rather than stick close, which then led to Torres getting a lot more space to turn and run at them, which led to us conceding space and impetus.
All because of one change. And, to be honest, I never felt AVB got a hold of the situation from that point onwards. Dropping Sandro into that spot in front of the back line felt like the most natural thing to do: sure, we would concede attacking movement, but we wee 1-0 up in a difficult derby game with things starting to go against us, necessitating and anchor, and anyway we could have added Holtby and Defoe later to reintroduce some attacking spark. Sandro would have tracked the runs of Torres better than Daws or Verts did (due simply to his agility and pace) which would have freed up Daws and Verts to concentrate more on stopping Chelsea's playmakers dropping into holes in front of our back four.
But AVB waited too long, which led to us surrendering possession time and again, surrendering our tempo and surrendering the impetus, which led to their goal from a free-kick. And even then, his changes were somewhat bemusing. Holtby wasn't that much more solid than Eriksen was, and Defoe failed to impact the game after being given only fifteen minutes. Chadli for Townsend killed our direct running. This is not because those players aren't good or attack-minded, but because we simply couldn't get the ball often enough to give them options. Ramires would recover it time an time again, which thwarted our nascent attempts at restarting our first-half machismo. That could conceivably have been avoided had Sandro come on.
So, in the end, it felt like we were saved by the sending-off, and Chelsea's increasing vigor would probably have seen us concede again before the end had that card not happened. And after leading 1-0 at half-time, having played some fabulously fluid football, it felt like a bit of a let-down, that.
It is a decent point in the end, and puts us top for a few hours. And certainly, we deserved a draw based on our fantastic first-half performance, so no complaints are needed. But, it is important to take away two lessons from that: namely, that we have a long way to go before we learn the tricks of the trade necessary to become title contenders (Chelsea's riling up of our lads and the resultant motivation it gave them was admirably effective, albeit ****ish), and that our lovable AVB still has a little while to go before he can justifiably claim to be on Jose's level. Hopefully the next time we meet them, AVB will show Jose a few twists of his own, and then we'll be the ones turning it around and starting to batter them.
